Archive for July, 2014

Oracle has released its new database version 12.1.0.2 that includes the famous in-memory column store. InMemory option promises a big advantage for OLAP-like work loads by keeping table contents in a columnar in-memory structure. InMemory is not new, they did that for decades, but the interesting part is “columnar”. There’s much writing about that on the net and in the Oracle Concepts Guide, no need to reproduce that here.

But though the new feature is very young, we already can see a “you can stop using your brain, we have a new catch-them-all feature” thinking, at least such a marketing sound. But it’s quite easy to show that this is not real. As for many other features we got over the years, using Oracle InMemory still needs a concept, done by an architect knowing the ups and downs.

What I can see from playing with Oracle Inmemory is, that it’s only beneficial when all data you (might) have to query from is already in the columnar cache (Oracle term is “populated”). If not, query response times don’t improve much. Let me show you my test case.

I’m also very happy to announce, that my business partner Benedikt Nahlovsky‘s presentation “Kostenlos aber effektiv: Performanceanalyse mit Statspack und SQL*” also was accepted. It’s all about doing professional performance analysis with STATSPACK and SQL* tools.

long time no see? Many things have changed here, so my time for blogging was limited.

Together with Benedikt Nahlovsky, I founded “Performing Databases“, a company to offer top-class database know-how combined with flexibility and agility. Doing all the formal requirements, and pushing business into life absorbed much of my free brain space.

In June, my daughter and second child, Rebecca, was born. Private life will never be the same again, but she’s a new bright star in my favorite constellation. Like it!